


"Merry Christmas, Doctor."

by ironicalei6h



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, harry potter reference woo, in which the writer uses nerdy knowledge and names aliens by the process of taxonomy but not really, kind of, newspapers make appearances, rose/10, sexy TARDIS is sexy, which isnt relevant to the story at all but yolo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 06:19:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironicalei6h/pseuds/ironicalei6h
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Couldn't stay on their own planet, not even for—blimey, it’s Christmas, isn't it?” He picks up a copy of The Gazette from a vendor’s shelf and looks at it. There’s a frown on his face for a moment, his thinking face, but then he grins and shoves the paper in my direction. “Look at that, Rose—Christmas day, 1914! Talk about precise travel, eh?” The Doctor wasn't aiming for Christmas of 1914, or any Christmas day for that matter, but I don’t say anything about that and take the paper from him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Merry Christmas, Doctor."

**Author's Note:**

> I did a lot of Christmas fics as presents. This is for Kat. Also, this is my first Doctor Who fic EVER. I don't even read much Doctor Who fanfiction, despite the fact that it's one of my main fandoms. (I'm pretty sure it would be all timey wimey and spacey wacey and sciencey wiencey and it would make my brain explode.) ANYWAY! Onto the story! (Also, this was done in the mindset of it being Doctor 10, not 9. Just to clarify.)

            We’re in the year 1914, and it’s already cold as all hell before we even step out of the TARDIS. I steal a parka from the Doctor’s closet, taking my time with the decision. He stands in the doorway, arms crossed as he watches me browse the strange collection of clothing, chuckling at the faces I sometimes make and acting indignant when I pass jibes at his questionable-at-best fashion sense. “This thing? What is this, even?” I lift a heavy mass of dark cloth off the rack by the hanger, frowning at the oddly-colored feathers hanging around the apparent sleeves.

            “Dress robes,” he says, the picture of nonchalance. “There was a colony on Omega I-16 in the year two million who worshipped ‘the remembered human species.’” The Doctor says this as if the beliefs of the colony are both amusing and utterly ridiculous; looking back at the robes, I can see why. “Incidentally, all they had of the actual human species was a full set of Harry Potter books and an unfortunate collection of music from the 1990’s. Their image of Earth was a bit jumbled, as you can imagine.”

            Yes, I can imagine. I finally pick a dark grey, floor-length pea coat to cover up my London-of-2005 jeans and t-shirt. The Doctor rolls up the cuffs of the sleeves twice because they’re a little too long. I laugh as he rolls them; it makes me feel like a little kid again, with Mum fitting my big coat around my tiny body and shoving insulating gloves onto my baby hands so I can go out and play in the snow.

            It’s not snowing when we finally step outside, but the air feels wet and I know it’s probably not too long before it starts. I follow the Doctor, wondering what he’s on about because he’s mumbling to himself. “Couldn’t stay on their own planet, not even for—blimey, it’s Christmas, isn’t it?” He picks up a copy of _The Gazette_ from a vendor’s shelf and looks at it. There’s a frown on his face for a moment, his thinking face, but then he grins and shoves the paper in my direction. “Look at that, Rose—Christmas day, 1914! Talk about precise travel, eh?”

            The Doctor wasn’t aiming for Christmas of 1914, or any Christmas day for that matter, but I don’t say anything about that and take the paper from him. It’s crisper and thicker than the newspapers that I’m used to, and I rub one sheet between my fingers for a moment because it’s funny. This old stuff, I think all of it’s funny. Fascinating, yeah, but strange. I look up from the paper and smile at the excitement I can feel emanating from the Doctor.

            “So, what’s all this, then? Some rampant galia-whatsits from the planet Blue Lagoon Three back with a personal vendetta against,” I look back at the article for a name, “James Henry?” The headline reads “ _Mayor of Hettsburgh Deathly Ill on Christmas_ ”; I laugh when the Doctor scoffs at me.

            “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. The galia-whatsits are very genial beings. A bit vague, though.” The Doctor spares me one of his all-too-rare smiles and looks down the street, his eyes pausing on each sparsely-dressed beggar and street vendor. I fold the paper back up with ginger care, smiling politely at the vendor behind the cart. It must be hard, living in these times and not being able to see your family on Christmas day. It suddenly occurs to me that a family torn apart by work isn’t that new an invention, and I feel a bit sad.

            I nudge the Doctor, pointedly looking down at his pockets. He looks reproachfully at me for a moment before rolling his eyes (“Oh, _all right_ ”) and digging in his pockets for some change. He hands me the heavy coins and I drop them into the can held by the vendor.

            The vendor grins brightly at us, despite his lack of teeth and startling odor. “Thanks miss. Want to keep the paper?”

            “Yeah, all right,” I say, smiling at the man again before the Doctor’s whisking me off down the street.

            “Oh, I see it, Rose!” No preamble otherwise, I’m left to catch up with him, folding the paper into my pea coat and steeling my nerves against the bitingly cold air.

○

            Somehow, the Doctor’s landed us in a _real_ doctor’s office, and I’m leafing through the newspaper for something to do. I always imagined that an early-twentieth century doctor’s office would smell (not that I usually spend my spare time wondering what doctor’s offices in the early-twentieth century smell like, mind you) old and musty, even at the height of its clientele populace, but it smells clean and neat, even if not quite as sterile as the surgeries in my time. The Doctor is sitting next to me, gleefully silent, just waiting for me to ask what we’re doing in the front room.

            I sigh heavily, making sure to seem appropriately put-upon even though my mouth is already curling into a smile. “All right, Doctor. What are we doing here?”

            “Wonderful question! We are going to see the doctor!” says the Doctor, and I try not to confuse myself with the paradox.

            “The…doctor,” I say, raising my eyebrows at him and willing the smile off my face. His grin grows that much wider.

            “The _doctor._ Hettsburgh’s doctor, to be exact. I have a feeling he’s hiding a bit more than contraband drugs,” the Doctor says gravely, and the smile on my face slips a bit.

            “Yeah,” I say, looking awkwardly down at the newspaper in my lap. “All right.”

            Hettsburgh’s doctor is an old man with wrinkly skin and bushy white eyebrows and is called Dr. Jacobs. His skin is thin and chalky when I shake his hand in greeting upon entering the dimly-lit examination room beside the Doctor, who immediately requests my treatment as an equal because I’m a Norwegian duchess (does Norway even have duchesses? I haven’t a clue).  Dr. Jacobs looks at us skeptically—come _on_ , I’ve got as Cockney an accent as they come—but he gestures for us to sit in a pair of chairs beside a creaky-looking oak desk anyway. “How may I help you?” he asks us. The Doctor looks at me knowingly, hardly suppressing a wink. Having no clue what we’re doing here, I’m left to sit uncomfortably in my chair, watching Dr. Jacobs with a decidedly wary eye. He puts me off because I’m pretty sure he might be an alien. Knowing the Doctor and his whims, he probably is.

            “Oh, Dr. Jacobs. I’m deathly ill, yes, deathly ill, indeed,” the Doctor says, really playing up the dramatics, one hand clutching his button-up shirt and the other the arm of the chair. I try not to roll my eyes because that might blow our cover, although I don’t put much stock in the modicum of “cover” we have as it is. Not with _those_ acting abilities, I don’t. We exchange another glance, this one equal parts confused and amused.

            Dr. Jacobs frowns uneasily. “But, dear boy, you look perfectly well. What’s the matter?”

            The Doctor brings it upon himself to begin coughing violently into the crook of his elbow. “’Dunno. Woke up this morning and couldn’t talk for anything.” If only.

            I watch in utter amazement as Dr. Jacobs rises from his seat at the desk and bends over the Doctor, removing the stethoscope from around his neck. “Might it be the sniffles? It’s been going around lately, you know, Mayor Henry’s got it and everything. Half the Council’s bedridden with fever.”

           “Might well be, doctor. Might well be,” the Doctor says solemnly, and I suppress the familiar shiver that runs up my spine as the sight of him so serious. It’s both unnerving and intriguing, because the Doctor I know isn’t so often heavy-hearted. _Well, he doesn’t often show it, anyhow_ , I think morosely, looking away as Dr. Jacobs asks the Doctor to unfasten the first two buttons of his shirt, looking timidly at me as he does so.

            Dr. Jacobs puts the stethoscope into his ears and presses the cold metal to the skin of the Doctor’s chest. The look of surprise when he hears two hearts beating is, all things considered, in every respect, priceless.

○

            “Oh, the _Obscurious paludis_. Ugly creatures, aren’t they?” the Doctor asks, although I know he doesn’t necessarily want me to answer because he saw that thing back there and is aware of what I’ll say.

            I say it anyway. “Not the most photogenic, either, I don’t think.” The creatures— _Obscurious paludis_ , whatever that means—had been infiltrating the city’s council, desiring control over an alien territory. The Doctor, being the genius he is, recognized the signs of their presence—the unusually high number of sicknesses, the suspiciously well-liked doctor, and apparently, some dubious-looking beggars on the street—and went immediately to the source:  Dr. Jacobs. I wasn’t wholly surprised. The Doctor eradicated the aliens by taking their picture with an old camera—although, being in 1914, I suppose it’s rather new _now_. The aliens changed skin colors immediately, their horns protruding from their skulls and their fingers separating and then coming together again to form flippers of some sort.

            “It wasn’t the light, by the way,” the Doctor informs me. We’re walking back to the TARDIS, tired and using each other to stay upright. “They were surprised by the flash and that led to their defense mechanisms crashing. Light’s not what did it.”

            “You don’t say,” I laugh, looking at him and wondering where all that knowledge comes from, all that quick thinking. It started snowing somewhere between the limits of Hettsburgh and here, and I wrap the pea coat tighter around me. The Doctor looks perfectly comfortable. “Don’t you ever get cold?”

            He chuckles and kicks a stray rock on the path. “No, not easily. Not much use getting cold in,” he waves his hand in the air vaguely and grimaces, “space, you know.” The Doctor looks at me critically. I try to hide my face in my hair, but it doesn’t really work because he’s the Doctor and things like that are useless against him. “But you do, you silly human. Come on, then. Into the TARDIS, before you freeze yourself.”

            I smile at him and our sides bump. The TARDIS is in front of us now, the doors open, and I turn to him in the doorway. “Did you have a good Christmas, Doctor?” I’m mostly teasing, because when you think about it you could have Christmas after Christmas after Christmas when you’re in the TARDIS with the Doctor, but he still had fun chasing the aliens around Hettsburgh; I know it.

            He smiles back and nudges me inside. “Get in there, Rose. You’ll catch your death out here.” The comment is made in an unexpectedly low way, and I hesitate only a half-moment before hugging him.

            “Merry Christmas, Doctor,” I say, and I pull him into the TARDIS before he can get too cold.


End file.
